Author song

In Russia

Urban romance and song miniatures of Alexander Vertinsky can be considered the predecessors of the author’s song.

At first, the genre was based on student and tourist songs, which differed from the “official” (distributed through state channels) dominant personal intonation; as well as a lively and informal approach to the topic. Separate works of the genre appeared back in the 1930s (romantic songs composed by Pavel Kogan and G. Lepsky , the most famous of which was “The Brigantine ” ^[1] , as well as the early songs of M. Ancharov ). In pre-war Moscow, the songs of the geologist Nikolai Vlasov (1914-1957), which marked the beginning of the tourist song: “Student farewell” (“You will go to the reindeer, to distant Turkestan, I will leave ...”) and others became popular.
A special ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]} fate arose in the songs of Yevgeny Agranovich , who began to compose them in 1938.

Songs of this generation were indistinguishable from those sounded on official channels and were often written by re-texting a well-known melody: for example, Baksanskaya is considered to be a classic of a tourist and author’s song - a song written by warrior-climbers in the winter of 1943 ^[6] to the melody of Boris Terentyev ’s famous tango “Let days go by. " But it’s also completely written:

• the popularly known song “ Blue Handkerchief ” (the first version of the text, written by a professional poet ^{[7] [8]} , was soon replaced by “folk”, which was distributed throughout the country);
• the symbol of the besieged Leningrad is “ Volkhov feast ” (to the tune of the song “Our Toast”).

Most often (although not always) the performers of the genre of "author's song" are both authors of poems and music.

In the early 1950s, a powerful layer of copyright songs appeared in the student community - in particular, at the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University (the most famous authors of this galaxy were Gen Shangin-Berezovsky ^[9] , D. Sukharev , L. Rozanova ) and at the Pedagogical Institute im. Lenin ( Yuri Vizbor , Julius Kim , Ada Yakushev ).

The author’s song gained wide popularity in the mid-1950s, with the advent of the tape recorder . At this time, they began to systematically compose songs:

Later, in the 1960-1980s, the classics of the genre were:

In the 1980-1990s, they were added:

Songs of his own composition, including popularly known, were written by “pure” poets, for example:

• Valentin Berestov ,
• Gleb Gorbovsky ("When the night lanterns swing ...", "At the pavilion" Beer-water "..." "Ah, you breasts!" And others),
• Victor Sosnora ("Foundry flew towards the station ...").

The author’s song was a form of self-expression of the “ sixties ”.

In its development, several stages can be distinguished.

1. The romantic stage, led by B. Okudzhava, lasted until about the mid -1960s . The main area of ​​realization of the romantic beginning was the "song of wanderings" with central images of friendship (friend) and the road as a "line of life" - the path to the unknown and the path to self-knowledge. At this stage, the author’s song practically did not go beyond the boundaries of the environment that generated it, spreading “from company to company” verbally or in tape recordings. In public, it was performed extremely rarely and, again, almost exclusively “in its circle” - in amateur student reviews, “ skits ” of the creative intelligentsia and the like, as well as on tourist gatherings, which gradually turned into songwriting festivals. At this stage, the authorities almost did not pay attention to the author’s song, considering it a harmless manifestation of amateur creativity, an element of intelligent life.

Alone, however, were the bitter and satirical songs of A. Galich, who already turned to harsh criticism in the early 1960s (“The Wanderers Waltz”, “Ask the Boys”, “Behind the seven fences”, “The Red Triangle” and others). the existing system with unprecedented courage and frankness for that time.

2. From the mid-1960s, Julius Kim (“A conversation of two informers”, “Two imitations of Galich”, “We are repeating about Marx and about Lenin ...”, “My Mother Russia ”and others). A number of songs by A. Galich (“We are no worse than Horace”, “I choose Freedom”) and Yu. Kim (“Imitation of Vysotsky”, “Lawyer Waltz”) were directly devoted to Soviet dissidents .

The aesthetics of the “song of protest” was continued by V. Vysotsky. He expanded intonational techniques (for example, his intonational find is the singing of consonants) and the vocabulary of the song, including an extensive layer of reduced vocabulary in it.

3. An important place in the work of many bards was occupied by the theme of World War II . At the same time, in contrast to the heroic pathos of the songs of the “official culture”, the “human aspect” of the war, the suffering caused by it, its inhumanity (“Goodbye, boys!” B. Okudzhava, “Ballad of the Eternal Flame” came first in the author’s song. "A. Galich," It so happened, the men left "V. Vysotsky and many other songs).

4. Seeing the power of the impact of such an author’s song, the authorities proceeded to pursue it. The doors of concert organizations closed tightly before the poets-singers (in 1981, after the XXV Moscow rally of the KSP ^[10] , a letter was sent to the regions of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions prohibiting the provision of any venues for stage performances to Yulia Kim, A. Mirzayan and A. Tkachev) , radio and television studios. They were expelled from creative unions, pushed into exile (A. Galich), strongly reproached in print, and so on. At the same time, thanks to the “ magnetism ”, the author’s song was known, sung and listened to, copied from each other.

Regular samizdat newspaper “Minstrel” of the Moscow Amateur Song Club (KSP) wrote about the life of the song in 1979-1990. Since November 1979, when the first issue of the newspaper was published, its editor-in-chief was Andrei Krylov , from 1986 - B. B. Zhukov. The newspaper was distributed in photographic and photocopies throughout the country. Particularly noteworthy were and received a wide response from 2 special issues of the newspaper, fully dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Vysotsky :

• special issue - August September 1980;
• No. 1 (11), January - March 1981

However, the attitude of the state towards the authors was far from uniform. So, the Writers' Union took an extremely hostile position - “what kind of singing poets are they”; at the same time, the Union of Composers did a lot for the authors of amateur songs - believing that their work (for all the improvisedness of their melodies) compensates for some neglect of the mass song that appeared among professional composers in the 1960s compared to the pre-war time (in particular, the opinion sounded in the well-known documentary of 1967 “ Urgently required song ”). With all measures of banning songs along other lines, the songs of S. Nikitin, V. Berkovsky, A. Gorodnitsky, A. Dulov and other authors were regularly included in the musical-text collections of mass songs released by the UK. And for such a famous author of the 1970s and 1980s, as E. Bachurin , the Union of Composers actually became a producer, releasing his first vinyl album, and soon the second. Also, no persecution of the author’s song did not affect the frequency of S. Nikitin’s appearance on the radio.

Among the works of professional composers, the intonations of the author’s song are recognizable in:

• Michaela Tariverdieva ,
• A. Pakhmutova ,
• Andrei Petrov .

5. The authorities tried to “master the inside” of the author’s song, taking under the “roof” of the Komsomol the “amateur song clubs” (originally student) ( KSP ) that spontaneously appeared everywhere. But they did not succeed too well.

The matured “bards”, the founders of the genre, continued to develop a lyrical line, but nostalgia for the past, the bitterness of losses and betrayals, the desire to preserve oneself, one’s ideals, a thinning friendly circle, anxiety for the future — sentiments summarized in B.’s chiseled line — sounded more distinctly in it. Okudzhava: "Let's hold hands, friends, so as not to disappear one by one." This lyrical-romantic line was continued in the works of S. Nikitin, A. Dolsky, V. Dolina, as well as bard-rockers ( A. Makarevich , B. Grebenshchikov , A. Kholkin ).

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the development of the author’s song has turned into a calm channel. The number of “singing poets” and their performing skills, the number of their professional organizations, concerts, festivals, cassettes and disks sold are growing; even a peculiar “classic” of the author’s song is made out (the popular albums “ Songs of Our Century ”). Radio and television broadcasts dedicated to the author’s song appear: for example, M. Kochetkov organized and hosted a TV program about the author’s song “Home Concert” on the REN TV channel , and since December 1995, he has been broadcasting the live TV program on the TV channel “ Teleexpo ” involving bards “Capercaillie’s Nest” - a project that subsequently grew into a famous Moscow bard-cafe with the same name ^[11] . Theaters of the author’s song are being formed: in Moscow - "Crossroads", artistic director Viktor Luferov , in St. Petersburg - the Music and Poetry Bardtheat "Petersburg ShansON", artistic director Leonid Koronov . Concerts of an author’s song and interviews with performers are periodically broadcast by the Kultura television channel ; and on the radio " Echo of Moscow " there is a weekly concert of the author’s song according to requests, conducted by Natella Boltyanskaya ^[12] .

The most famous authors of the 2000s are:

For a wide circle of bard song lovers, in 2001 in the village of Listvyanka, Irkutsk Region, the actor Eugene Kravkl and his friends completed and opened the "Authors Song Theater on Lake Baikal."

Semyon Slepakov calls himself “Bard the ten ’s man”, since 2010 he has been performing humorous and satirical songs written in the bardic tradition.

At the intersection of songwriter and folk music in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a minstrel movement formed, associated with fans of role-playing games and historical reconstruction . Its representatives - Tam Greenhill , Jovin , Chancellor Guy , Ira and Saruman , Elhe Niennah , Illet , Laura Bocharova and others - perform acoustic songs of their own composition, often on medieval or fantasy themes. The traditional theme that has become a classic of minstrel song is the work of J. R. R. Tolkien ).

In other countries

The author’s song is not a phenomenon of Russian culture alone. This phenomenon arose in the 1960s simultaneously in different countries. Everywhere, songwriters ( Liedermacher in the GDR and Germany , cantautor in Italy and Latin America , auteur-compositeur-interprète in France , singer-songwriter in the USA ) sang songs of their own composition with a guitar. Everywhere such poets with guitars were deeply connected with local tradition, but everywhere their songs contained criticism of society and the state - whether it was socialist or capitalist , they were an experiment with different genres and had a tremendous ability to create alternative audiences (primarily youth). The popularity of the song was associated with a worldwide surge in youth political movements of the 1960s and early 1970s (see, in particular, the 1968 Protests article), with the emergence of new leftists in the West, as well as the dissident anti-communist movement in Central Europe . The ancestors of this trend are the Bertold Brecht and Hans Eisler zonds that appeared in the 1930s.

The works of Edward Stachura and Jacek Kaczmarski in Poland , Karel Kryl , Pavel Dobesh and Jaromir Nogavitsa in Czechoslovakia , Wolf Birman in the German Democratic Republic and Franz Josef Degenhardt in Germany, Georges Brassens in France , Luigi Tenko and Fabrizio De Andre in Italy , Victor , Phil Oakes , Pete Seeger , Tom Paxton , Dean Reed and Bob Dylan in the United States contributed to the formation in these countries is critical and democratically organized public, accepting the author's performance of rituals, collective listening tapes and self toyatelnogo, amateur singing in the companies. Also simple, but emotional melodies, choruses were an incentive for joint singing at concerts, the performers themselves called for this.

In Cuba, the songs of Carlos Puebla and Compay Segnundo in their genre were similar to the author's song in other countries, but the important difference was that these artists were officially recognized by the Fidel Castro regime, which used them to increase its popularity both in Cuba and abroad.

В странах «социалистического лагеря» в результате цензурной политики властей распространение авторской песни приняло форму полуофициальных фестивалей и встреч, концертов на частных квартирах, домашних магнитофонных записей, которые распространялись бесплатно среди друзей и знакомых или покупались на «чёрном рынке». За пределами «социалистического лагеря» концерты и звукозаписи авторской песни были вполне легальными, но всё же связь между авторской песней и музыкальной индустрией никогда не была сколько-нибудь прочной, а «заградительная политика» теле- и радиокомпаний в США, ФРГ, Италии и Франции, долго не желавших предоставлять эфир авторской песне с её порой острой и непредсказуемой социальной критикой и рискованным, карнавальным юмором, также придавала ей в этих странах определенную ауру «нелегальности». В Чили же после военного переворота 1973 года все публичные исполнения nueva cancion сначала находились под строжайшим запретом, а почти все известные «поэты с гитарой» были вынуждены покинуть страну, самый знаменитый из них, Виктор Хара, был убит почти сразу после захвата власти военными. Лишь после 1975 года nueva cancion вышли из глубокого подполья, но и тогда их авторы были вынуждены использовать эзопов язык .

Ни аудитория «поэтов с гитарой», ни их коллеги не приветствовали их профессионализацию и их сближение с миром поп-музыки . Первое публичное выступление Боба Дилана с электрогитарой на фестивале в Ньюпорте в 1965 году стало нарушением этого табу и было встречено публикой оглушительным свистом ^[13] .

Чёткой и единой терминологической системы, связанной с песенными жанрами, до сих пор не существует. Иногда термины «авторская песня» и «бардовская песня» употребляют как синонимы. Но, например, Владимир Высоцкий категорически не любил, чтобы его называли «бардом» или «менестрелем» ^[14] . Также себя к бардам не причисляет Александр Розенбаум .

Хроники показывают, что в 1950-х и начале 1960-х годов наиболее употребителен по отношению к жанру был термин «самодеятельная песня» — его, в частности, применяли и сами авторы.

Вопрос о названии песенного жанра не сразу заинтересовал любителей авторской песни. Как пишет в своей книге «История московского КСП» Игорь Каримов, аббревиатура КСП использовалась ещё в конце 1950-х годов, но в то время расшифровывалась как «конкурс студенческой песни». На ставшей вехой в истории КСП конференции по вопросам самодеятельной песни в Петушках (май 1967) вопрос обсуждался сфокусировано. Рассматривались варианты «гитарная песня», «любительская песня», «туристская песня» и ряд других. По итогам совещания было выбрано название «самодеятельная песня», а за сочетанием КСП закрепилось значение « Клуб самодеятельной песни ». Тогда же, в мае 1967 года, состоялся первый общемосковский слёт КСП.

• Люди идут по свету / Сост. Л. Беленький. — М.: Физкультура и спорт, 1989. — 400 с. — 220 000 экз. (нотно-текстовое издание)
• Наполним музыкой сердца / Сост. Р. Шипов. — М.: Советский композитор, 1989. — 254 с. — 300 000 экз. (нотно-текстовое изд.)
• «Среди нехоженых дорог одна — моя» / Сост. Л. Беленький. — М.: Профиздат, 1989. — 440 с. — 200 000 экз. (нотно-текстовое изд.)
• Грушинский. Книга песен / Сост. Vit. Шабанов. — Куйбышев: Куйбышевское книжное издательство, 1990. — 368 с. — 100 000 экз. (нотно-текстовое изд.)
• Берег надежд: песни ленинградских авторов. 1950—1960-е годы. — СПб: Бояныч, 2002. — 448 с., ил. — ISBN 5-7199-0153-1
• Авторская песня: Антология / Сост. Д. А. Сухарев. — Екатеринбург: У-Фактория, 2003. — ISBN 5-94799-234-5
• Каримов И. М. «История московского КСП». — М.: Янус-К, 2004
• Поющая душа. Песни ленинградских авторов. 1970-е годы. — СПб: Всерусский собор, 2008. — 864 с. — ISBN 978-5-903097-23-4
• Джагалов Р. . Авторская песня как жанровая лаборатория «социализма с человеческим лицом» / Авторизованный пер. from English А. Скидана // Новое литературное обозрение. — 2009. — № 100. — С. 204—215
• Городницкий А. «Атланты держат небо…» — М.: Эксмо, Яуза, 2011. — 448 с. — ISBN 978-5-699-51594-3
• Орловский С. П. Альтернативный подход // Авторская культура песен: Сб. статей (ж. «Релга»)

• Московский Центр авторской песни
• Искусствоведческий подход. Левин Л. И. Авторская песня // Эстрада в России. XX век. Encyclopedia
• Деятельностный подход. Орловский С. П. . Впечатления от семинара Владимира Ланцберга, 07.05.2005
• Деятельностный подход. Орловский С. П. . Новый слой культуры — Авторская культура песен, 15.10.2012
• Деятельностный подход. Орловский С. П. . Основы Учения Сибард, 2015
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